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How to Submit Your Video for the Brony Thank You Commercial

Submitted by jturner on Thu, 05/10/2012 - 18:52

Greetings, fellow brony! If you're interested in representing the entire brony community as we thank the makers of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, there are a few procedures to follow, and a few things you should know:

Who we are looking for
In short, brony role-models. People who a six year old would want to grow up to be. People in military service, professionals, first responders, business people, tradespeople, etc. We'd like at least one parent with an teenage child, and one service person. Note that with the exception of parent/child submissions, all submissions must be of a single person, NO GROUP SUBMISSIONS ALLOWED.

How to create the video

Equipment Needed:

Required: An HD (1080p) capable camcorder

Highly desirable: Artificial lighting, a boom microphone

Not allowed: Visible microphones, camera phones, webcams

Setting

Unless you have access to lighting gear, an outdoor setting in open shade is best. Try to avoid windy or noisy locations.

Try to avoid locations with corporate logos or trademarks visible in the shot.

Try to avoid distracting action in the background.

Either your clothing or setting should let people know what makes you a role model.

The Shot

In general, we're looking for what's called a 3/4 shot, which is you from your knees to slightly over your head.

Use the rule of thirds. Place yourself in either the left or right portion of the frame.

What to say

We need an exact (no ad-libbing, etc) version of the following text. You need to be in and out in 27 seconds, 25 is better. Speak clearly, and leave a brief pause between each sentence, as we'll need to chop up the submissions to string them together.

Also try for very little but distinct pauses between each of the 6 elements of harmony.

The Text

Hi, we're fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and we'd like to say thanks. Thank you to Hasbro and the Hub for creating such a fantastic show. Thanks to DHX Media and all the animators for making it so beautiful to watch. To the voice actors and singers for bringing the characters to life. To the composers for creating such wonderful music. And to the creators of the show and the writers for bringing a little more honesty, loyalty, laughter, generosity, kindness and magic into the world, for kids and bronies alike.

How to submit the video

Do not do anything to degrade the video quality of the original video.

If you have the capabilities (this is preferred), upload a copy at as high a video quality setting as you can manage to YouTube, with the privacy level set to Unlisted (Anyone with the link can view). Send the URL of the YouTube video to: submissions@bronythankyoufund.org

If you can't upload the video, send a physical copy to: The Brony Thank You Fund, Incorporated; 107 Fordway Ext; Derry, NH 03038 USA. Please note that mail-in submissions will NOT be returned.

What you need to know
This is the unpleasant part. If you think that political candidates need to be squeaky-clean, you haven't seen anything yet. First off, anyone we select will have a full background check run on them, the same kind employers use. Also, we're going to ask you for any online identities you use, and google the heck out of them. Without getting into specifics, if there's anything we find that fails the "it would creep out the parent of a six year old" test, we're going to take a pass. If you think we're likely to find such things when we go looking, don't bother submitting a video. We're making absolutely no value judgements here, we're just stating the practical realities of getting an advertisement on a channel aimed at a youth market, and not having anything come back to distract from the positive message of friendship and charity we're trying to promote. That having been said, your race, age, gender or sexual preference in and of itself will have no bearing on the decision.

How the process will work
We'll be accepting submissions until June 1st, 2012. At that point, we will choose our candidate brony spokesponies, get in touch with them to run background checks and get release forms signed.